


the color of damp violets

by Eremji (handsfullofdust)



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Anal Sex, Anima Consumption, Biting, Blood, Breathplay, Bruising, Dacryphilia, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Deleted Scene, Denathrius is a prick and loves getting his face slapped, Denathrius thinks he's done nothing wrong, Distension, Drooling, Edge Play, Enemies as lovers, Everyone's a Villain, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Enthusiastic Consent, Extremely Rough Sex, Graphic Violence, Hair Pulling, Interspecies Sex, Large Insertion, Licking, M/M, Masochism, Minimal Prep, No Kink Negotiation, No Safeword, No redemption, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Power Imbalance, Pre-Canon, Sexualized Violence, Size Kink, Slapping, Telepathy, Throat Fucking, Unsafe Sex, mentions of torture, no happily ever after, shape shifting, vampire shenanigans, vampiric themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28208154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handsfullofdust/pseuds/Eremji
Summary: There must be a reckoning in Revendreth – but first, Denathrius himself knows he must kneel and be cleansed.Denathrius blows gently over the surface of the goblet of anima, dispersing the malingering mist, and drinks deeply. The first signs of suffering from the drought have already lent a milder texture to recent offerings, a wintry vintage of aching despair underpinned by notes of fluting sorrow. He finds he does not prefer it to the usual untenable rage and bright pain flavoring the harvested anima of those undergoing redemption, but needs must.
Relationships: Sire Denathrius/Garrosh Hellscream
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	the color of damp violets

**Author's Note:**

> **The sexualized violence in this story is consensual, but still very graphic, and involves multiple instances of explicit descriptions of someone actively enjoying having pain inflicted on them before and during a sexual encounter. The power dynamics are also obviously very sticky. Any aftercare is only vaguely implied. Please reread the tags a few times before venturing forth.**
> 
> Denathrius is a big boy, so he shapeshifts down to about the size of a regular venthyr or an elf in order to make any of this work.
> 
> I tried to be overly exhaustive in my tagging, but if you don't back button at the above list and still venture forth and find something I missed, please let me know and I'll add the tag.
> 
> 100% based on about a dozen watches of the [Revendreth cinematic.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM90NNF3oMw&ab_channel=WorldofWarcraft) New around here? Watch that and you're basically caught up on these two.

*****

Denathrius blows gently over the surface of the goblet of anima, dispersing the malingering mist, and drinks deeply. The first signs of suffering from the drought have already lent a milder texture to recent offerings, a wintry vintage of aching despair underpinned by notes of fluting sorrow. He finds he does not prefer it to the usual untenable rage and bright pain flavoring the harvested anima of those undergoing redemption, but needs must.

The court carries on as they always do; ignorant, but playing at wisdom beyond their centuries, blissfully unaware of their impending doom, many of them slowly slipping back into their old ways while he keeps his influence on them tenuous. He’s been otherwise occupied, and his firm grasp on the reins of his realm has begun to slip. He’s heard whispers of rebellion, gleaned that seeds of doubt have been planted in his courtiers’ minds, and talk that Renethal himself is to blame for it.

The mote of truth is undeniable; Renethal oft forgets his place.

Memory is potent here; to forget their origins would be to be remedied of their hard-won freedoms. He thinks no less of them for doubting — it’s a mortal’s lot, even if they take the venthyr mantle — but the rot in his court must be expunged, and since he’s their sire, he must be held accountable for it foremost.

It is, after all, he who tilled this ground and shaped these halls. He who let his children grow decadent on his prosperity.

Renethal himself is a matter for another evening. Denathrius has ample time to attend to his wayward fledgling.

“Chamberlain,” he murmurs, leaning down to speak more intimately with the Lord Chamberlain. “I would take a penance tonight.”

“Sire,” the Lord Chamberlain says, turning from his observance of the court, visibly surprised before he can school his expression. “Who might you have me fetch for the honor?”

Denathrius looks over the assembled mass, each one milling about, sipping draughts of anima with airs of haughty privilege, growing ever more idle, growing sinful. “None of the venthyr, I think. I wouldn’t lay responsibility for my sins at their feet. We must have a great purge in Revendreth, soon, and I must cleanse myself first if I’m to wield the rod.”

The Lord Chamberlain’s eyes grow wide and Denathrius can sense his eagerness. It’s been a millennium or more since he’s scoured Revendreth himself, and most gathered are too young yet to remember. “Yes, of course. I’ll find a soul suitable for the holy task.”

The Lord Chamberlain disappears to his errand, head bowed with an obsequious flourish.

Night never truly releases its grip on Revendreth, land of eternal darkness, but the depth of it waxes and wanes with the moods of her master. The feasting halls are lined with bloodlamps, casting the night-pale occupants in a grotesque, sanguine light, and the massive stained glass panels set equidistant through the hall bathe the stone floors in a more subtle radiance.

He can still remember when he raised this building from the corpse of a dead land. Revendreth was once nothing but rock and the occasional scavenger living among the wasteland; now, they enjoy all the comforts of his magnificent castle, a place for both redemption and succor.

The night stretches on, with the court paying kind tribute as is their wont, an endless spiral of faces that pass Denathrius by, seeking approval, some with hands and severe faces raised in open adoration. Each one of them believes themselves bettered, that they deserve his praise for doing as he asks, but redemption is a continuous act: Denathrius can see the way the darkness sprouts within them, threatening to burst forth and allay not only their freedoms and pleasures, but their ability to carry out their holy duties.

He must not falter. He cannot. Not now. What’s waiting for them all will consume them if he does not act. He knows this. He believes this down to the last fraction of his spirit. To preserve what he’s built, he must cast himself with the winning side.

Some time after the last face has drifted past, Denathrius stands and raises his goblet, thanking them all for attending. He’ll do them no favors by brooding on a throne with the festivities winding down, so he dismisses them with his blessing, showering them with effulgence praise, offering what they all desire so much. When he retires to his private chambers to see what the Chamberlain has prepared, his guests all depart satisfied at his approval and suspecting none of his necessary duplicity.

And he is, of course, very satisfied when he finds the Lord Chamberlain’s hand-picked selection waiting for him.

Garrosh Hellscream, naked except for his heavy shackles, is kneeling in the room below, bound and waiting for Denathrius just beside an ornately-wrought bed. Orcish flesh is so resilient and their spirits are always so very difficult to break; Garrosh himself has proven deliciously resistant to any efforts to further his redemption to the next stage.

For some time now, Denathrius has considered taking a more hands on approach with Garrosh, who has remained unbroken and unmoved at all — like the old days, no rod spared in the pursuit of redemption.

But this liaison presents a new opportunity: Garrosh is still full enough of spite and pride to be the perfect blunt instrument for Denathrius’ own penance. He’s pleased to see Garrosh delivered to him now, for his own service — and to have his needs anticipated so thoroughly by his most loyal of subjects.

He works a little of his old magic at the threshold, trying a new, smaller shape on for size. Denathrius’ true form is too large for Garrosh to get a proper hand on, which is no fun at all, but he’s nothing if not flexible. By the time one of his newly minted and bare feet hits the top step, he’s whittled himself down to a full two heads shorter than Garrosh, no bigger than any one of the other venthyr born on Revendreth soil.

Best to look delicate, to further tempt Garrosh into breaking him.

“Lovely,” Denathrius says, shedding his ornate robes as he descends the staircase, discarding each crimson scrap of fabric like a rose petal on the black marble stair. He pulls off the final piece just as he reaches Garrosh, leaving his body just as bare, and allows the fabric to puddle at his feet. “I do hope you haven’t had time to grow comfortable.”

Garrosh says nothing, but his lip curls, and his chains rattle as he turns to look at Denathrius. His eyes track Denathrius movements, full of simmering anger, and a powerful thrill runs through Denathrius at the very prospect of unleashing Garrosh. But Garrosh is not ready to be the blunt instrument Denathrius needs, not quite yet.

He waits patiently in front of Garrosh, who has not moved since his entrance, except to fix Denathrius with his magmatic gaze.

“Are you unwilling to speak?” Denathrius asks, finally, when the moment of silence has stretched into a gaping chasm. It’s his duty this night to yield, after all, so he neatly sidesteps whatever futile contest of wills Garrosh must have in mind by ceding first. Let Garrosh think him pliant and impatient. “Or have they mangled your tongue? That would be an incredible pity.”

Garrosh’s expression morphs into snarl. He could reach out and slap it off Garrosh’s face — well within his right for such brazen insolence — but pushing back too far and too fast will damage this most fragile of moments. He must be sensitive to Garrosh’s origins and cognizant of his orcish pride. Those with a warlord’s ego are always so much harder to free from it when their own kind lauds their every bloody conquest.

“Ah — or did you forget me?” Denathrius says, feigning injury. He knows very well Garrosh has not. “I’d despair if any of my loyal subjects could not know the name of their sire and benefactor, but I suppose I can make an exception for some,” he pauses to look Garrosh up and down, “wayward soul.”

“The dreadlord,” Garrosh says, which is not one of Denathrius’ usual titles _—_ but the sound of it is sufficiently mighty that Denathrius doesn’t protest. “You’re a lot smaller than I remember.”

“Things are not always as they seem,” Denathrius says, holding up a slim hand shimmering with sanguine magic, “and it befits a being of my station to have many guises for many occasions. I seek to please, after all.”

“Is every word out of your mouth as much of a lie as your face?” Garrosh asks, sneering. His voice is barely a rumble of sound, like gravel beneath a carriage wheel, or a begging throat beneath a boot.

And oh, oh _that_ — that _anger_ , that _disdain_. Yes. It gives Denathrius pause.

Denathrius picks up a corked bottle of anima from the sideboard and unstoppers it, taking in the delicate scent of it before he pours a fresh goblet. “Has anyone ever given you a proper taste?”

Garrosh grunts. Even sneering he’s quite a lovely specimen, at first glance only muscle-bound and brutish, but he’s a paragon of a species that are delightfully cunning and well-shaped for wars both martial and mental. He says, “They flog it from me. Do you think I don’t know what it tastes like?”

“ _This_? Ah, no, this is _mine_ , a special vintage,” Denathrius says. He wafts it beneath Garrosh’s nose. “This, well — if it were possible at all, it’d put the life right back into you. Drink for me.”

Garrosh snarls and rears back as far as he can manage, jerking his face away. “I don’t want your swill, _demon_.”

“You’ll take it or be thrown back into the anima cells to be tortured until every last drop has been wrung from your broken spirit,” Denathrius says coolly, yanking at Garrosh’s chains for emphasis. “I’ll tolerate your insolence as a matter of course, given who you are, but not _rudeness_ in the face of my hospitality. Do you understand?”

“I won’t drink,” Garrosh says, and for the first time Denathrius senses a mote of fear in him, a surprising vein of it that surges up from beneath a hundred other spiteful things.

He tugs on that thread and finds, to his awe and delight, Garrosh’s entire world consumed in green flame. Deeper still he goes, finding an offering of tainted blood and the dark magic in it that feeds on the mind, steals it, subjugates it. Far away, in another world, in another time, a distorted memory of two chalices overflowing with green magic — one taken freely, one discarded, but in both visions, weapons are raised.

“Oh, sweet, tortured creature,” Denathrius says, softening his approach, sensing his way in. The fear grows palpable and Garrosh is abruptly lush with the conjoined shame that being afraid brings. “There is no fel here. No dire magic. This is _life_ to us. This is as vital as your heartbeat ever was on your Azeroth, in your — Draenor.”

“How do you know that?” Garrosh demands, drawing himself as best he can to full height. His muscles strain as he tugs on his manacles and wrenches at the heavy collar about his neck.

“I can see into your heart,” Denathrius says, caressing Garrosh’s craggy face. “Won’t you take my gift?”

Denathrius can sense the murky outline of the plan that forms in Garrosh’s mind: he’ll pretend to agree, if Denathrius presses the issue, and then make a show of being subservient so Denathrius will release him. A clever ploy, if Denathrius could not simply pluck the intention from his mind, should he wish.

And then what comes after is — ah. A miasma of possibility, filling Garrosh’s mind like a cloud. Most scenarios involve some form of getting his hands around Denathrius’ throat and keeping them there.

_Most_ scenarios. There are other outcomes. Denathrius can’t predict the future, only peer into Garrosh’s churning fantasies and glean dim impressions of things that haven’t happened yet.

He decides to save them both the time wondering, so he pushes his body up against Garrosh’s and touches his warm skin with his free hand. Garrosh jerks and the plan reorganizes itself, the probabilities shifting, the outcome becoming even blurrier. He can feel Garrosh’s cock, soft against his invading hip, begin to plump with grudging interest.

Any pleasure can be almost irresistibly heady after the atonement process has proceeded for a time. Denathrius wouldn’t ever force him, would debase himself in other ways long before he ever coerced another being into _desiring_ him, but he doesn’t think he’ll have to — he’s simply setting his offer on the proverbial table, as plain as a light in the darkness.

Denathrius feels along Garrosh’s arm, stroking the corded muscle there, and stops at the manacles binding his wrist. If Denathrius could be killed, these arms might be sufficient to the task. He can feel Garrosh’s rage, his desire to slip a blade into Denathrius’ belly — and would Denathrius be so _lucky_ to suffer that kind of sweet, holy agony — but under it, Denathrius senses a desire for dominance, an awareness of Denathrius’ bare body, a craving for power over it.

Garrosh Hellscream sees Denathrius’ slender hips and cannot decide whether to crush him or hold him down and fuck him into submission. He catches a more vivid flash of it when he tastes the faint wisps of Garrosh’s anima — Garrosh smashing his face against the dark stone, making him beg, and Denathrius feels his own body stirring in interest.

He slips his thumb under the manacle, between the metal and Garrosh’s chafed skin, and murmurs the words to release him from all of his shackles. They fall away, leaving Garrosh staggered, surprised.

But not for long. He is, after all, a warrior of the highest caliber. Before he can collapse to the floor, he’s in motion.

Garrosh knocks the goblet from Denathrius’ hand. For a single moment, Denathrius mourns the spill, but no matter — he can collect it later.

The next blow comes just as swiftly as Denathrius hopes it will. The pain is twofold: the crack of Garrosh’s massive knuckles as they hit his face —

— and then the full body spasm as his skull meets the ornately carved headboard of his bed. Denathrius tastes blood, his _own_ blood, and has time only to think _wonderful_ before Garrosh is on him again. He twists reflexively, scrambling half away from Garrosh, and is immediately shoved flat onto the silk coverlet. Garrosh is above him so quickly Denathrius barely sees him move, straddling him, knees on the bed, a massive hand around Denathrius’ throat.

Denathrius feels himself struggling beneath the crushing grip, but he allows it to happen. How pretty it is to play at total helplessness, how delicious to feel the strength and anger of the body above him, all muscle and misplaced rage. His flailing hand lands on Garrosh’s face, shoving blindly, and he feels Garrosh’s rage-filled anima surge beneath his bare palm and drinks it in with a hungry moan.

Garrosh releases him abruptly, going right off the bed and stumbling back a few steps besides. His eyes have gone wide, mouth open. Denathrius has never seen one of his kind look surprised before, but the gobsmacked look about him could be nothing else.

“What?” Denathrius asks through his teeth, voice a strangled croak. Pain lances through his cheek when he touches it, making his cock twitch. It’s been centuries since he’s been set ablaze so quickly. “Do you only enjoy beating me if I pretend I don't _like_ it?”

“This is dishonorable,” Garrosh says, speaking at last. He looks wary, golden eyes fixed on Denathrius.

“The great warmonger speaks of _honor_ ,” Denathrius says, laughing as he pushes himself up on his elbow. “You’re here, within my grasp, precisely because you have none. If you won’t submit to the usual penance, perhaps you’ll finally confront your desire for conquest in this manner.”

“I don’t want this,” Garrosh says. Denathrius can taste the lie, feel it crawling across his skin, feel it fill the air between him.

Denathrius tips his head back and laughs, spreading his legs. He takes himself in hand, blood on his teeth and his mouth aching where Garrosh struck him, then strokes his cock until it leaks wet and thick on his bare stomach. He can feel each one of Garrosh’s emotions like plucked harp strings, the lust for sex and violence, the shame, the anger, the despair.

He opens his eyes and finds Garrosh staring at him, mouth open, chest heaving, and knows his trap has been well-baited. Denathrius licks the blood from his teeth. “Don’t you?”

Garrosh’s own cock is jutting hard and huge from between his thick thighs. The size of it is even more than Denathrius expected. He wants it instantly, to be split apart by it.

“What do you want from me?” Garrosh asks, jaw working, as if trying to figure out Denathrius real motivation.

“A fist in my hair and your cock in my throat,” Denathrius says, slithering down the bed and stretching out in blatant invitation. “Do you not like this body? Do you not so desperately want to destroy it? I can wear another, if you’d prefer.”

“I could kill you,” Garrosh says.

Denathrius laughs, a short, mocking bark. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“Your servants wouldn’t have time to reach you,” Garrosh says, but it has a texture of uncertainty to it. Denathrius has disarmed his arguments, and Garrosh’s reservations are weak.

“You may have been a warlord in life, but here you’re just another lost sinner,” Denathrius says. He makes a grab for Garrosh’s muscular thigh but Garrosh is just out of reach. “Come and try if you like.”

The hand that grips his hair is gentle, until it’s not.

Garrosh moves so quickly for a being his size. In one moment he’s standing warily out of reach and in the next he’s pushing his half-hard cock across Denathrius’ cheek, the tip of it leaving a slick trail across Denathrius’ lips, his chin, his jaw.

“Is this what you want?” Garrosh asks, yanking Denathrius’ head back so far that his neck aches and his shoulders burn. Denathrius opens his mouth, opens it until his jaw creaks, and Garrosh works his cock into it with sharp grunts.

Denathrius chokes around that colossal girth when Garrosh pushes his cock against Denathrius’ tongue with no possibility of retreat, fist gripping like iron at Denathrius’ scalp, the hot pull of it wonderfully painful in a stripe across his skin. He can’t retreat from the hold without subduing Garrosh, even if he might want to, so he swallows, trying not to gag, when the thick, slippery head of Garrosh’s cock pushes against the back of his throat.

The angle is bad. Garrosh seems to realize. He retreats briefly and grunts, “Turn over.” The command seems more of an absent-minded courtesy than an instruction, because he yanks Denathrius out flat on the bed without waiting for him to comply.

The world spins and Denathrius is left on his back, Garrosh’s cock pushing against his clenched teeth.

He opens for it eagerly, unable to suppress his moan. When Garrosh’s cock bullies past his tongue, advancing into his throat, and when he swallows it down he reaches for his own throbbing cock.

With a snarl, Garrosh slaps his hand away. “You want to suffer, you’ll suffer.”

He snatches at Garrosh’s forearm, digs his thumb into the tender space between Garrosh’s tendons, pressing hard. With a stutter of his hips, Garrosh pushes in and in until Denathrius is nearly smothered under the weight of him, nose pressed into the soft heat of Garrosh’s balls.

He jerks, eyes watering, when Garrosh manages half an inch more, blocking out all sensation but the painful arch of his spine, his shoulder blades grinding against the bed frame, and the bruising bulge of his throat around Garrosh’s tantalizingly salty cock. Trapped at that angle, he can only drool and struggle to keep from gagging, unable to even breathe.

Denathrius can feel precisely when Garrosh’s guilt and rage are subsumed by his arousal. He gives up his paltry grip on Denathrius’ throat and bends over him instead, pinning him to the bed, and thrusts deeper and deeper inside.

The world swims gently; Denathrius need not breathe, not truly, but the body he currently occupies is built to desire the luxury of it, so he chokes and struggles fantastically. He catalogs his response with a dreamy wonder, marking the way his vision grows black around the edges, how his legs curl upwards as he struggles, how his grip begins to go weaker, muscles spasming. It’s a wonderful cacophony of involuntary bodily responses, each one a unique and delectable pain to archive and memorize for later.

Garrosh slides each inch of his hard cock into Denathrius’ gaping, bruised mouth one final time and releases directly down Denathrius’ throat with a snarl. Denathrius swallows as best he can, but the flood of seed leaves him sputtering, his face covered as he sputters it up after Garrosh’s cock is finally pulled from his mouth.

Denathrius slumps limply to the bed, panting, face wet. Dizzily, he touches his cheeks. Ruddy tears stain his face; he’s leaking his own anima.

Garrosh says nothing, breathing hard as he recovers. He slumps to the bed beside Denathrius, head between his hands, his emotional agony muted by the lingering physical pleasure of satisfaction. It cannot stop here, though Denathrius badly would like to leave these wounds open for a time, and drink from Garrosh’s well of shame and self-recrimination, so he rights himself and wipes his face, ready once more to find the most tender parts of Garrosh’s ego.

The massive, muscular shoulders tense under Denathrius’ touch. Denathrius drapes himself against Garrosh’s warm back, sliding his hands over the beautifully-carven bulk of Garrosh’s thick neck and down the front of his well-built torso. He makes a point to press his erection against the small of Garrosh’s back, rocking into the soft skin until it’s slippery with his own preejaculate.

Into Garrosh’s ear, he says, “Do you not believe I enjoyed it?”

“I don’t know how you could,” Garrosh says, voice low, soft. He shudders bodily when Denathrius drags his nails across his bare, sweat-slick skin, a spike of desire dredged from his spent body. He’ll rise soon. “We would not treat an enemy this way.”

Denathrius hums thoughtfully. Garrosh believes what he’s said, but Denathrius has seen all manner of sin a creature can commit; Garrosh’s crimes are only spectacular in their temerity and scale, not their depravity. “Come, drink from me, and perhaps you might understand how there might be another shape for desire in Revendreth.”

“I won’t be your slave,” Garrosh snarls, hunching defensively. 

“Why would I ever want to keep you as one?” Denathrius asks, earnest about this, even for all his other little subterfuges. “Whatever dark magic you fear, you’ll find what I offer is not that which you repudiate. Anima is life itself in Revendreth and gives succor to the faithful as much as it makes the trees grow and the night gardens bloom. I made this place — I do not need _anima_ to make the denizens bend to my will.”

Garrosh makes a half-hearted attempt to shrug off Denathrius’ touch, ceasing when he fails. “Fine. Bring me your goblet. May my misery be complete.”

A spark of glee leaps within Denathrius. “No. You’ve made such a mess of things, I think we’ll do this the old fashioned way. Come, take it from me directly. You know how to extract it.”

Garrosh turns slowly, shifting his bulk onto the bed. Like this, he must be thrice as broad as Denathrius, and he fills Denathrius’ vision, obscuring aught else. He’s lovely, sweating brown skin gone the color of burnished brass beneath the dim bloodlights, his eyes like grave dirt, and he smells like salt and iron and war.

His nostrils flare and his gaze skims down Denathrius’ body. “Your cock is still hard.”

“Astute of you,” Denathrius says lightly, stretching out to emphasize his very delicate and vulnerable state. He’s quite certain he must be purpling with bruises around his throat and on his ribs; he can see them forming already on his hip in a wide half-moon where Garrosh grabbed him at some point. “Would you like to fuck me while you drink from me?”

The expression Garrosh wears is complicated. Denathrius can feel his desire and his reluctance in one.

“Do you torture all your prisoners this way?” Garrosh asks doubtfully, blunt nose rumpled faintly with distaste. He puts his hand on Denathrius anyways, cupping a hip, then the darkening span of Denathrius’ ribs. “Let them fuck you?”

Denathrius hooks an ankle around Garrosh’s tree trunk of a thigh, stretching even imperiously. He admits, “No. I don’t usually do any kind of fucking. You're a particularly delicious morsel and I’ve been so very hungry of late.”

Garrosh bends over Denathrius and seizes him again by the throat, firm enough to hold him still, and turns his face to the side to examine his handiwork. Rough trade, indeed. He spreads his hands over Garrosh’s chest, feeling all the power in that flesh. Mortals are sometimes rendered insubstantial by their time and torment in Revendreth, but Garrosh is as solid and warm as if he were still living.

“Do you have something for it? I’ve no desire to chafe my cock raw, even with you panting for it,” Garrosh rumbles, lowering his head. He sniffs at Denathrius’ skin, and licks the anima from his cheek. “This would have killed you if you were a man.”

Denathrius pushes up towards him eagerly, hooking one arm around Garrosh’s thick neck. “How very fortunate for both of us I’m not. Check the sideboard — I’m certain something there will strike your fancy.”

Garrosh abandons him for the hunt, shaking off Denathrius’ grip like a bear might shake off a hound. Denathrius would feel wounded if he couldn’t sense the palpable wave of anticipation emanating from Garrosh. All things being equal, Denathrius would prefer a heavier hand — but a good fire is first coaxed with kindling and then stoked with sturdier stuff.

He closes his eyes, one arm flung over his face, and waits patiently until the bed dips once more. Denathrius’ breath hitches when Garrosh palms his thigh, a wide, callused hand sliding gently up the soft, tender skin.

There’s a glut of pleasure to be had of the usual sort, too. He’s not fundamentally opposed to it, if it’s very much on offer.

“Spread your legs,” Garrosh says, and Denathrius acquiesces with a great, trembling delight. Were Denathrius mortal, he imagines he might actually fear that commanding tone.

He tries to let a little of it in anyways, to imagine what it might be like to _truly_ relinquish power, and finds the very thought of being pinned to the bed and fucked open over and over again in order to unsuccessfully sate Garrosh’s vast, perpetual appetite to be a powerful aphrodisiac.

The oil that Garrosh spills over Denathrius cock and balls is cold enough that he hisses in surprise. The warm hand that follows it is torturously gentle, slick, caressing over the vulnerable, overstimulated stretch of skin, and then parting the globes of Denathrius’ ass to circle the tight ring of muscle there.

“Don’t make it too easy,” Denathrius says, touching his bruises for emphasis.

“Shut up,” Garrosh says and bends and kisses Denathrius.

He opens his mouth for that big, questing tongue when it licks into him. There’s a moment of liquid warmth where he feels as though time itself could stretch infinitely in this moment and he might not care overmuch; Garrosh, big and brilliantly hungry, leaning over him, kissing him with skill and hunger, with too much body for Denathrius to really get his arms around, and the sweet spread of his hole around one thick finger that pushes in and in.

The second finger is less polite, but still slick, and he breathes through the intrusion. The third that instantly follows makes him cry out, cock twitching, at the blunt stretch. He thinks with blinding delight that Garrosh might try to fit his entire fist inside Denathrius, but it’s his cock that soon follows in a hot line of pain and deliriously good pleasure. Denathrius thrashes but finds no reprieve — the grip on him is unbreakable because he doesn’t wish to break it. Garrosh doesn’t relent until he’s buried up to his balls in Denathrius’ body.

When it finally subsides and Denathrius comes back to himself, he’s weeping anima, with Garrosh licking it directly from his face in short, raspy swipes of his broad tongue. He’s panting from the feeling, the fullness, his chest heaving. Denathrius registers faintly that Garrosh is stroking his rib cage with his knuckles, the gesture surprisingly tender.

“You taste sweet.” The observation is a rumble of noise this close. Garrosh punctuates it by mouthing his way down the side of his face and neck in soft, lipping bites, tusks scraping Denathrius’ tender skin. “You do enjoy this.”

“Yes,” Denathrius says. When he moves his hips, the pain that follows is breathtaking in its immediacy, but the motion also pushes Garrosh across an achingly sweet spot inside of him, and even that little friction alone is worth seeking.

“Can you take more?” Garrosh asks, gaze burning. There are faint tremors in his muscles, all over, as if he’s restraining himself. The texture of his mood has changed entirely, his desire winning over his considerable guilt.

“Yes. You’re doing a lovely job,” Denathrius says, struggling for his usual haughty levity. It’s very difficult, even for him, to breathe evenly and put on a good show when he can feel Garrosh’s monumentally thick cock buried well up in his guts. He digs his fingers into the muscle of Garrosh’s spine, grip hard enough to bruise, encouraging. “ _Please_ move.”

Garrosh’s mouth curls, not quite a smile, but certainly there’s a mote of sharp-edged satisfaction in it. He spreads his big hand across Denathrius’ flat belly and gives a firm thrust upwards against his own palm. Denathrius can feel Garrosh’s cock move inside him, watch it nudge against Garrosh’s splayed fingers, and the sound he makes can’t be stifled.

Denathrius arches off the bed on the second thrust, hissing, and digs his nails into Garrosh’s skin. He scrabbles uselessly for a modicum of self-control, but like his grip on Garrosh, finds it challenging to manage. He’s sweating anima now — the refined dregs from ten thousand years of sipping from mortal souls — and the bleedthrough from the wellspring of his own churning life force. Garrosh is lapping it directly from his skin, chasing every droplet of power like a tippler at last call.

He loses count of the thrusts, only aware that he’s pushing up to meet each one, body aching, bruised so sweetly that all thought of anything else is banished from his mind. Garrosh drinks the anima from him, but soon also casts it off in great waves, the spinning wheel of the Purpose dancing like the Light itself in the very center of his mind, a wheel of death and life and tumultuous pleasure and a cleansing pain that brings absolution.

Denathrius has sinned, of all of them, and may be the worst of them all. The harvest he’s sown will cause a great schism upon its reaping. He’ll pay a price unknown for all his betrayals once the deed is done, but here, speared on Garrosh’s cock and sweating his very essence, he begins to cast off his own smaller sins in the red haze that fills the air around them.

It hurts so beautifully — and then it doesn’t hurt at all. His borrowed form isn’t made only for suffering, and slowly all his slick flesh is rendered pliant and giving. The pain kept him floating, dazed, and as it recedes it leaves only pleasure, until his faint, bitten-off cries and stifled sobs morph into little gasps.

Garrosh makes a low noise and nuzzles up Denathrius’ chest, half drunk on anima himself, on the low grade smog of pure euphoria being cast off by Denathrius. He presses his face into the curve of Denathrius’ neck, gathering Denathrius to him with one iron-muscled arm, and each thrust grows gentler — long, slow, and so deep — until Denathrius feels as though he might combust.

“Ah, please,” Denathrius whines, pushing upwards as best he can. The space between them is hot and humid, the secondhand sense of Garrosh wanting him so searingly good. Garrosh’s abdomen brushes against his cock, but it’s not enough friction by far. He doesn’t realize it’s true until he says, “I’m close,” and bites down hard on his own lip.

“No,” Garrosh says, moving with unshakable purpose. His eyes have grown dark, the pupil nearly eclipsing the iris, and his whole body trembles under Denathrius’ hand. “How long will you let me keep you like this?”

On the cusp of such bodily and spiritual heights, Denathrius wants to declare wildly _forever_ , or some equally frivolous, self-indulgent nonsense, but he must tread lightly here — in wishing, here in Revendreth, where the very stone answers his every whim, he might well make it true.

When he opens his mouth, he means to dismiss the question, but a spasm of pleasure wracks him, and he can feel Garrosh’s surprised satisfaction, and says, “As long as you can hold on.”

Garrosh can deny himself, it seems, for quite some time.

He makes a feast of Denathrius, who grips the bedding and pulls it free in jerky fits, knotting his fingers into the fabric until his hands ache from clutching. Garrosh shines with exertion, limned with a sweet, tantalizing glow of anima. There’s little room left for anything else in Denathrius’ thoughts; he spills once with his cock nearly untouched, seizing and twisting while Garrosh holds him down against the bed, and nearly bites through his own tongue. There’s blood in his mouth at some point, and then Garrosh’s tongue in it, and then Garrosh’s teeth scraping against his skin.

Denathrius briefly loses track of the action. When he comes around, he’s being turned carefully onto his side, Garrosh’s bulk settling behind him, Garrosh biting carefully at the nape of his neck with his surprisingly soft mouth, that big cock pressing into him once more, slicked again with a fresh pass of oil.

He groans and reaches back, gripping Garrosh by the nape of his neck, and they rock together until the anima nearly obscures his vision. His cock, having lain soft for a time, grows achingly hard once more, until he’s squirming back greedily, seeking that electrifying friction.

Garrosh slides his palm over Denathrius’ belly, stopping just before he touches Denathrius’ weeping cock. “Would you beg?”

“Never,” Denathrius lies, clenching his jaw even as his body betrays him. The glut of indulgent pleasure after his long drought frays his self-control, and the absolution and relief of the pain makes him as pliant as a good leather strop, ready for the blade.

The final relief comes slowly. Garrosh refuses to touch him for a time, even when he whines for it, a test of Denathrius’ will and Garrosh’ endurance. Another orgasm builds, swelling under his skin, tortured deliciously from his overwrought flesh until he wants nothing more than to coil up and do the deed himself.

He resists. The heady highs of bodily pleasure are their own kind of torment.

Garrosh fists his hand in Denathrius’ hair and, cock buried deep inside Denathrius’ body, bites down ungently on Denathrius’ bare muscle until Denathrius can feel the sharp tips of his incisors pierce the skin, just enough to draw forth a surge of fresh blood and anima.

Pulled as tight as a bowstring, Denathrius spills over and through Garrosh’s squeezing fingers the instant he clasps them around Denathrius’ aching cock. Garrosh grunts, the sound almost pained, and Denathrius can only grasp and clutch while Garrosh fills his well-used body with hot orcish seed.

Garrosh slumps on top of him, licking the trickle of anima from Denathrius’ bitten throat, and rumbles something indistinguishable but seemingly very pleased, if the tenor at which his emotions are resonating is any indication. There are aftershocks, little thrusts of Garrosh’s hips as his cock softens, sending zings of bright sensation up Denathrius’ spine, and he seems delightfully intent on keeping Denathrius filled with his cock and come for as long as possible.

Laying limp and half-lucid in a mess of silk and crushed against damp skin, Denathrius’ expectations have been far exceeded. Garrosh rolls onto his back, spreading out on the bed like he’s meant to be there, as if the very space around him belongs to him.

One round of sharpness is not enough to entirely silence the miasma in Denathrius’ mind, not for long, but the very edge of it has begun to become blurry. He contemplates what’s transpired, touching his throat where it aches the most.

It must be some great flaw in the Purpose that Denathrius must be shepherd to a flock of mortal sinners when has no mortality himself to contemplate.

“Do you require assistance?” Garrosh asks, regarding Denathrius askance with a heavy-lidded gaze. His brow is pinched and stormy, his expression unreadable, but Denathrius can feel the entire spectrum of emotion radiating from him, from doubt to satisfaction.

“Don’t trouble yourself. We’re not lovers after one roll in the hay,” Denathrius says, gathering his hair and fanning the nape of his neck dry. He glances back at Garrosh and smirking faintly, says, “Even if it _was_ a very good roll. I require no coddling.”

He catches a glimpse at himself in the mirror — it looks as if someone has perhaps taken a cudgel lightly to his face, jaw purpling, one eye bruised, blood from his neck trickling down his mottled chest. On his ribs are a series of dark, delicious rosettes, pressed there by Garrosh’s fingers. He turns to admire the back of himself and is just making to pull his cheeks apart to see the ruination visited upon him when Garrosh’s hands close around his wrists.

“What if _I’d_ enjoy the coddling? Allow me,” Garrosh says, angling Denathrius towards the mirror. “Can you see?”

“Yes,” Denathrius says, neck craned to peer over his own shoulder. Garrosh parts him deliciously, fingers digging into the muscle of Denathrius’ ass, and then runs his fingertips over the well-used hole. Very well pleased indeed, Denathrius slings an arm around Garrosh’s wide shoulders and says, “Look what you’ve conquered, my warlord,” pressing a biting kiss to his brow.

Garrosh bends his head to worry at Denathrius’ neck. He pushes a finger inside Denathrius’ body, then two, tugging and rough, and then removes them, slick with oil and with come coating them all the way up to his big knuckles. “Why would you allow this?”

Denathrius strokes the furrow from Garrosh’s brow. “My children and I believe that pain is sacred, here. It cleanses the spirit and purges from us all that ails our hearts.”

“Pain is pain,” Garrosh says gruffly, but he’s watching Denathrius with his golden gaze and his thoughts taste uncertain.

“Is it?” Denathrius cups Garrosh’s face in his and bends for a kiss. His tender mouth scrapes Garrosh’s tusks and he shivers, pushing closer. “Think on the spice and flavor of pain, the depth of it, the breadth and unutterable joy of your soul being purged of its sins, of being reduced to cinders and ash at the hands of another so you might be free of yourself, be _reshaped_ — ”

“Do you always talk so much?” Garrosh grumbles and bites him, hard enough to sting, on his lower lip. The stubborn fool does not know what Denathrius knows. He has only a single piece of his own tiny puzzle, and stands amid the rest, still lost and unable to see the shape of things.

But he feels very good, and tastes even better, even if he is prone to interrupting Denathrius. Denathrius can set aside his more philosophical arguments for some other time.

Denathrius groans into Garrosh’s mouth, his usual loftiness and pretense burned away. This is what it feels like to be anchored to his body. This is the grounding he needs. This is the picture, assembled in whole: pain and pleasure, his very essence torn down and reconfigured into the shape of extreme desires.

But still, they have much time to while away this night, so he slips away after only a moment, to pour himself a goblet of fresh anima and drink deeply, and Garrosh allows it of him, broody and uncertain. He’ll make no grand revelations tonight, but Denathrius senses the seed of a deeper curiosity has been planted.

Perhaps when he’s bent to the tender mercies of the venthyr later, Garrosh will contemplate how the texture of that ritual suffering compares to the bruising kiss of a lover, given freely and wonderfully.

Perhaps —

Perhaps when Denathrius feasts Zovaal’s cohort later with his hoarded anima, he might keep Garrosh to himself, his soul slumbering until the time at which Denathrius might tend to it personally.

He’s always been vain and greedy with his power – those are his sins to bear, and what he must always atone for – but he does not think Garrosh would prefer Zovaal’s obliterating regard.

Denathrius lays his palm to the surface of the blood mirror that leads directly to the heart of Castle Nathria, feeling in it the warm hum of the slumbering anima that lies in his realm’s veins, beating beneath his palm like a pulse, the vital heartbeat of Revendreth. What he must do will perpetuate a sin above all other sins and all of his children will suffer. But he _is_ Revendreth, her very bones, her marrow, and if his kingdom must burn to ash to save them from a darker despair, then he’ll light the flame himself.

On the bed, he can hear Garrosh settle, shifting his bulk. Denathrius touches his bruised mouth and draws in a deep breath, fortifying himself against his own melancholy mood. He must not doubt. He must not falter. He turns back to the bed and its half-dozing occupant, who stirs when the mattress dips beneath Denathrius’ weight, and slides his hands up either side of Garrosh’s spine. He bends and lays a smattering of kisses along Garrosh’s bare flesh.

The engine of Garrosh’s soul still hums steadily and stubbornly in the shape of his past life, still too arrogant for Denathrius to shape into one of his venthyr. He thinks, even if he cannot secret Garrosh away, that perhaps he could even convince Zovaal they might get further use out of Garrosh as the prideful creature that he is; Garrosh is in no rush to reach for his own salvation, and soon enough salvation will matter not at all for any of them.

“Again?” Garrosh asks lazily, and Denathrius hums in the affirmative. A big hand closes hard around his wrist and pulls him down, tusks scraping across his bare chest, and Denathrius’ breathing hitches. Garrosh pushes just hard enough at the space between the bones of Denathrius’ wrist that he feels the sharp edge of pain creeping through, and the unfettered, worry-free mental bliss that pain promises to bring.

“Yes,” he says through his teeth, a hand on the back of Garrosh’s head. With a rake of his nails down Garrosh’s muscular back and thoughts of the multitude of floggers and other tools for the penitent in the next chamber, he asks, mouth slanted slyly, “But how do you feel about a bath?”


End file.
